How to Animate an Indominus Rex Run Cycle in Maya by Jonathan Symmonds

Ready to animate a seriously cool dinosaur? This course dives into animating a powerful Indominus Rex run cycle using professional creature animation workflows in Maya. You’ll learn how to make this massive beast move with believable weight, speed, and aggression, perfect for your demo reel.

🎯 What you’ll learn

• Animate a realistic Indominus Rex run cycle in Maya using professional creature animation techniques
• Understand dinosaur run mechanics, including stride length, hip drive, and tail counterbalance
• Block, refine, and polish a fast quadruped run cycle using clean animation curves
• Apply production-ready workflows to create a portfolio-quality creature animation
• Analyse reference footage to achieve believable speed, weight, and aggression in large creatures

✅ Requirements

• Skills: Basic familiarity with Autodesk Maya is recommended, but no prior creature animation experience is required. All animation concepts are explained step by step.

📝 Description

Animating a realistic dinosaur run cycle is one of the most demanding challenges in creature animation. Large theropods like the Indominus Rex combine speed, mass, balance, and aggression, requiring a deep understanding of biomechanics and timing to feel believable on screen. Creature animation is a unique skill to master, and who better to teach it than a former creature animation specialist who worked as the Lead animator on Game of Thrones?

In this course, you’ll learn how to animate a powerful Indominus Rex run cycle step by step in Autodesk Maya. Guided through a clear, production-proven workflow, you’ll explore how weight, stride length, hip drive, and tail counterbalance work together to sell speed and scale in a running dinosaur.

You’ll begin by understanding the limitations of the rig and analysing reference to break down realistic run mechanics. From there, you’ll block the run cycle by establishing strong poses, correct foot placement, and clear directional force. As the animation develops, you’ll refine timing and spacing, animate the upper body and tail, and apply secondary motion to enhance realism without losing clarity.

The final stage focuses on polishing the animation using clean curves and subtle adjustments that bring the run cycle to a professional standard. Throughout the course, emphasis is placed on understanding why each animation choice works, so the techniques can be applied to other dinosaurs and large creatures.

By the end of the course, you’ll have a studio-quality Indominus Rex run cycle suitable for inclusion in a demo reel or portfolio. This course is ideal for animators interested in creature animation for film, VFX, or games, and includes the Irex rig, scene setup, and lighting so you can follow along with confidence.

🧑‍🎓 Who this course is for

• This course is for beginner to intermediate animators who want to learn professional creature animation techniques. It is ideal for students interested in animating dinosaurs, quadrupeds, and large creatures for film, VFX, or games, as well as artists looking to strengthen their demo reel with a high-quality run cycle.
• It is also suitable for animators transitioning from character animation into creature animation.

🧑‍🏫 About the Author

Jonathan Symmonds is a senior character animator and VFX supervisor with over 20 years of experience in film, television, and high-end visual effects. He studied animation at the University of Hertfordshire and began his career at Framestore in London before working across major international studios.

His credits include Avatar, Where the Wild Things Are, Prince of Persia, Nanny McPhee, and Trollhunter, where he served as lead animator and developed a proprietary rigging system still used in his workflows today. Jonathan was also Lead Animator on Game of Thrones (Seasons 5–8) at Pixomondo and later contributed to House of the Dragon.

Alongside production work, Jonathan has taught animation online to over 3,000 students worldwide, focusing on practical, production-ready techniques. He is the founder of Sophoria, a VFX studio and online animation academy dedicated to high-quality creature and character animation training.

🏁 Final Result

• A studio-quality Indominus Rex run cycle animation, ready to be added to your professional demo reel or portfolio.